Editorial: Nisar Keshvani

This month, Brisbane's multimedia art scene will buzz with activity at the Multimedia Art Asia Pacific Festival 2000, on from Sept 15-17. We'll witness quality programming under its "SEE, SEEK, SPEAK" theme with all-day screenings of video/digital art work from Singapore, Malaysia, China, Taipei, Indonesia, Japan and Australia.

International guest panels will rap and share ideas at an all day forum presented by curators, theorists and artists. The panels will netcast and stream through the MAAP web site with simultaneous online chats open for interaction from international participants.

A must-visit if you're in town, or definitely worth a virtual drop-by. Our special thanks to Paul Bai for use of his image-based MAAP online project: 'Greeting from China Town' 2000 electronic postcard series.

And back in fAf land, the last six weeks have been particularly exciting for us. In August, our Indigenous Art gallery curator, Jenny Fraser launched 'cyberTribe: eyesee exhibition' which was featured on the Australian Cultural Network to coincide with the International Day of Indigenous Peoples on 9 August.

"Since 'eyesee' was to have an international contingent, I needed a thematic starting point that we all shared knowledge of. Kitsch can be found all over the world and is sometimes considered Aboriginal/Indigenous content. Having said that, it has to be realised as harmful stereotypical content. Sure it's sometimes cute/fun/tropical, maybe even 'exotic', but very rarely do Aboriginal people own the patent over those representations," reflects Fraser.

For other related works, check out Koorinet - the Indigenous Australian WWW Resource Directory, an excellent resource.

Other exciting news - fAf formed an alliance with SIGGRAPH's Singapore Chapter, which means we'll be on top of events and activities in the region and be able to provide better coverage for our readers. To top it off, fAf was awarded a grant from the Australia Council for the Arts for 2001, which allows us to continue improving our content. Gracias!

As part of our commitment to serve our readers, and better meet your needs, we've developed an easy to fill online survey. We'd be grateful if you could spare the time to respond.

And in this edition, for your reading pleasure we bring you: Avatecture and the Avatar Manifesto by Mike Heim, reviews of Design by Thinking by Ben Spooner, ensemble logic book by Mary Anne Breeze, The Virtual Worlds conference by Joseph Nechvatal, SIGGRAPH 2000 by Pam Dixon and Cryptorunes by Holly Robertson.

See you at MAAP and around fAf!